Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Jury to decide if Googling pornography is normal

Is pornography as American as apple pie? A defence lawyer in Florida thinks so. He plans to use information on Google search terms to show that his client's pornographic website is acceptable according to modern USA standards.

Clinton Raymond McCowen is on trial for creating and distributing pornographic material through his Florida-based website. But a 1973 decision by the Supreme Court deems such material offensive only if it breaches "contemporary community standards".

Quite how to gauge those standards is problematic: members of the public generally don't like to admit to the use of pornographic material.

That's where the publicly-accessible Google Trends feature comes in. It records the frequency with which certain terms have been Google searched over time. Using the feature, McCowen's defence lawyer will show that residents of Pensacola, Florida, are more likely to Google search "orgy" than "apple pie". According to Google's data, he may be right.

But is this evidence going to sway the jury? Past form suggests not. In a trial of another Florida-based pornographer earlier this year, his defence lawyer used a computer in the courtroom to demonstrate that there were millions of sexually explicit websites, but far fewer related to wholesome subjects such as the quarterback at the local University.

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